A new Apple patent application, published Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, describes a movement based image editing technique. According to Apple, users will be able to edit their images by simply moving their devices – without touching the screen or pushing a button. The patent’s title is “Movement Based Image Transformation”.

Apple says that, basically, users may edit images or photos (e.g. applying filters, effects, adjustments, etc) by simple moving, shaking or slapping their mobile devices which will be detected by builtin sensors (e.g., accelerometer). Users will be able to choose the type of edit or adjustment to be applied to the image based on a type of movement. “For example, a user can assign a particular type of edit to be applied to the image to a specific translational or rotational movement,” Apple states. This means that if you want to change your photo to black and white, you may just need to rotate your device clockwise to apply this change. In the patent application, Apple describes various ways in which users can configure their devices to do image editing by assigning different types of edits to various combinations of movements of the mobile device.

This technique will not only make image editing more fun and entertaining, but also, it should make it very easy.

Apple credits Behkish Manzari and Rachel Roth for the invention of U.S. Patent Application No. 13/630366.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example of editing an image based on movement of a mobile device.FIG. 2 illustrates an example of applying multiple types of edits to an image based on movement of a mobile device.FIG. 3 illustrates an example of the types of rotational movements that can be used to edit an image.FIG. 4 illustrates an example the types of translational movements that the can be used to edit an image.FIG. 5 illustrates an example graphical interface having graphical element indicating a current value for a type of edit.FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of an example process for editing an image based on the movement of a mobile device.